Help for the Hurting Child: Christian Approaches to Therapeutic Parenting

The primary purpose of this book is to assist those caring for children unable to be with their original parents. There are many reasons this occurs. Some might be truly orphaned, their parents having died from AIDS, Ebola, or another epidemic or because of an accident, war, terrorism, or some other illness or tragedy. Others perhaps come from situations in which original parents or adoptive parents are not able to care for them due to factors related to either the child or parents. Whatever the situation, these children do not have the advantage of living with their original set of parents and are now in some type of alternative home placement.

The placement may be a foster home, adoptive home, orphanage, children's home, residential school, or other type of placement.

Caring for these special children, who are hurting from having been separated from their original parents, is a difficult, challenging, but rewarding ministry.

As Christians, we are commanded to care for the widows and orphans, as this fulfills true religion:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

-James 1:27

Well researched and comprehensive, Banta's work is a fusion of his experiences and deeper probings as they pertain to paving a healthy and functional pathway for children who have been displaced from their original families for one reason or another. What gives the author's work even greater credence and legitimacy is the firsthand accounts and interactions he has had with those working directly with the children, from foster parents to orphanages. Piecing together the three core topics of psychology, psychiatry, and religion, the work is a bona fide guide toward providing a holistic and therapeutic game plan to develop the child.

-Mihir Shah, The US Review of Books



Lawrence E. Banta MD LFAPA is a medical doctor specialized in psychiatry with subspecialty in child and adolescent psychiatry. Over the past four decades, he has worked with children in various countries as well as the US who have been displaced and traumatized. At the time of writing, he is providing outpatient mental health service and consultation in the Boise, Idaho, area. He lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife, Evelyn, a licensed professional counselor. Together, they provide consultation and assistance with child-serving agencies internationally. Dr. Banta enjoys camping, photography, and travel.